Nebulous Mooch

When I was a kid I wanted to be an oceanographer, or a marine biologist, or the Bionic Woman. As an adult, I realized that becoming the Bionic Woman would be way too painful. A skydiving accident and a series of painful and costly surgeries wouldn’t really be worth bionic hearing or being able to run at 60 miles per hour.

The whole idea of being an oceanographer went out the window when someone told me that the job would require math. I struggle to figure out what my change should be when I buy something from the store. I failed Algebra II. I took a course in college called Math for Poets and nearly failed that. Math for Poets involved a lot of long division and adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions. On my part, it also involved a lot of sweating during tests and a lot of meetings with the professor. What a nightmare of a class! Luckily, I passed and was officially declared a poet.

With all of my other childhood careers out of the running, the only thing left was marine biologist. Here is the thing about the ocean and marine life. On the surface it may seem all peaceful and nice, but the deeper you go the more freaky and frightening everything gets. Maybe you could say the same thing about life in general. Anyway, deep water sea life are the things that horror movies are made up of. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a coward, so marine biologist had to be scratched off the list too.

Once I had to abandon all of these career choices I needed something else to fall back on, something stable that could make me piles of money. I settled on the only logical choice … writing.

Sometimes I wish I could see into the future. I’m not talking about decades or years, just seeing a week into the future would serve me well. I don’t care about knowing who will be president in 2033 or if humans will ever grow wings and take to the skies. I’m more interested in knowing how many pounds I’ll pack on as a result of my latest junk food binge or how driving a few minutes out of my way to avoid making a left turn across a busy street might affect my life.

I was a worried child. The slightest thing made me feel upset and afraid. I cried at night for weeks after seeing Nostradamus – The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. If you haven’t watched, it you should. I’m sure it would make you cry too. If Nostradamus was right World War III would happen in my lifetime. I was doomed. The only way to know the truth was to look into a crystal ball like the psychics on television.

A snow globe was the closest thing we had to a crystal ball. I’d wave my hands over the top of it before shaking it up and peering inside. The future was never very interesting just a lot of white plastic shavings falling over the same scene of a snowman and Christmas tree over and over again. Still I persisted.

I was convinced that I just wasn’t doing it right, and if I concentrated hard enough I would be able to see the future in the snowy wintery scene. Needless to say, that didn’t happen so I moved on to collecting the bits of broken glass that remained scattered across the lawn from a car accident in our front yard. I’d put the glass in a small red sack with Cesar’s Palace written across the front and pretend they were diamonds. If I was going to die in a few years in a World War III explosion I might as make sure I make sure I make my fortune from diamonds first.

Picture by seanmcgrath

How was high school for you? It was terrible for me. I was the shy kid with the not so stylish clothes and not so many friends who. I was the kid who was always picked last for the teams in gym class and who random people would threaten to beat up because I was “looking at them.” Heaven forbid you should look at someone. I mean seriously.

The other day I came across my high school yearbook and was thumbing through it. Unfortunately, there’s no embarrassing high school yearbook picture of me that I can post on the blog. If there were I’d definitely post it because I’m big on self-deprecating humor. Here is an approximation of what my yearbook picture might have looked like …

The bump on my head is a ponytail.

… alas I’m not in my high school yearbook. That’s the kind of kid I was. I was the kid who wasn’t in the yearbook and didn’t march at my graduation. I stayed home, read a book, and made a lemon meringue pie that night. (The pie thing probably isn’t true.)

Anyway, when I was flipping through my old yearbook I saw that one of the kids had written next to the Favorite Memory section: “I don’t want to remember anything.” Amen to that.

When I hear people reminiscing about their high school experiences I just can’t believe it. High school wasn’t good for me. I don’t want to go to any high school reunions or talk about things that happened in high school. High school was long enough ago that I think I’m allowed to simply pretend it never happened.

I was always a scared child.

• Crowds scared me.
• The Ragged Ann and Andy movie scared me.
• ET scared me.
• The Electric Company television show scared me.
• Motorcycles scared me.
• Santa Claus
• Loud noises scared me.
• Balloons scared me.
• Hats were so so scary.

Children have a few techniques they use to deal with fear. Most cry and cling to their parents for safety. I did that, but I had another coping mechanism that worked really well for me. I’d bite. I was especially fond of biting my father when I was scared. This somehow brought me comfort and security. There’s nothing like sinking your teeth into warm living flesh to make you feel better. My behavior probably made my father afraid of these things too because he knew what was coming.

I’ve probably gotten this story wrong in some way. My mother will call me on Sunday, because she always calls on Sundays, to inform me that I bit her too. I’m sure I did, but she never really talks about it so I have no story. You see, and this is a lesson to all of you who have children, the loudest story accompanied by the most laughter is the one that gets remembered.

Note: I don’t bite when I’m scared anymore. You could watch a the Ragged Ann and Andy movie with me without any worries of me taking a hunk of flesh out of your arm. I promise.

For all of you who don’t think that Ragged Ann and Andy could possibly be frightening, I dare you to watch this clip. If it doesn’t give you nightmares it will at least make you bite someone. On You Tube the first comment under this video is “Ragged Ann scares me.” I rest my case.

When I was in elementary school my two most hated subjects were spelling and phonics. I was always a good student. I got A’s most of the time, but it wasn’t uncommon for me to get F’s on spelling tests.

In third grade one of the boys in class cheated on his spelling test by copying mine. He was stunned when he failed. “I thought you were smart,” he said to me when he got his test paper back. I think the highest score I ever got on a spelling test in third grade was a C and that was amazing.

My problem is with short vowel sounds. Many of them sound the same to me. Apparently there are differences in the pronunciation of certain words that I just don’t hear. Words like pen and pin, him and hem, and then and than all sound the same to me. I never realized there was any difference in the pronunciation of these words at all before my husband pointed them out to me.

I like blame my pronunciation problems on my regional accent, but I don’t think I’m fooling anyone.

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like the idea of getting an award. Yeah, it’s nice to be appreciated for something you’ve done well, but I could do without the whole awards ceremony thing. I think it’s because of the traumatic experience I had in third grade.

When I was eight I entered a fire prevention contest. I had to draw a poster to help educate children about fire safety, and my poster was one of the winners. A fire truck came to the school to pick me up. The firemen came to my classroom and announced that I’d won and they were there take me to the award ceremony. My whole class went outside to see me off. It should’ve been very exciting, but it wasn’t. A few weeks earlier, I had gotten a very unfortunate haircut.

On the way to the fire house one of the firemen referred to me as “he” and I didn’t correct him. At the ceremony when my name was called to get my award, some boys in the front row loudly exclaimed, “It’s a girl,” and all I wanted to do was run out of the room, but I couldn’t. I spent the whole rest of the day holding back tears. Since that day I never wanted anything to do with award ceremonies ever again. Well, until the other day that is.

My husband was nominated for some jazz award. I’m so terrible because I don’t even know what the award was.

Anyway even though we usually behave like hermits, we decided to go to the ceremony/jam session. Though my husband was nominated he never got any kind of notice or invitation to the ceremony. He only found out about the ceremony because he did a gig with the person who nominated him the day before.

The awards looked like someone had sawed off a couple of table legs and painted them gold.

When they read the list of nominees not everyone’s names were on the list. People were yelling out from the audience, “What about me. I was nominated too.”

The person who announced the award left a list of the nominees and who voted for whom on the stage. Of course, everyone who was nominated got a good look at it during the jam session. It turns out that the nominees who didn’t get their names read out weren’t on the list because no one had voted for them. That’s a drag.

And, the best part of the whole evening was watching a twenty minute tap dance routine done on a carpeted floor by a guy who only knew three moves. Classic, as my husband would say, just classic.

I’ll post pictures from the evening tomorrow.

In high school, our foreign language choices were French or Spanish. That’s it. At the time I thought French was the language of snobs so I chose to take Spanish–a down to earth language of the people. That’s what I told my friends when they asked me why I wanted to learn Spanish.

The language I wanted to study in high school didn’t matter much. When I got my schedule at the beginning of the year in the slot where a language should’ve been my schedule contained the word typing. Typing? How was that going to help me get into college?

The typing teacher scared me, but I was overly timid. She was old and stern and didn’t take any funny business. If you were caught chewing gum in her class, she’d make you ball it up and stick it to your nose. We all sat at huge electric typewriters and did typing exercises. The room was filled with the racket of banging typewriters. Those things are really loud.

Maybe some of you aren’t familiar with electric typewriters. So here’s a demonstration.

What you type goes directly on the the paper. Crazy, huh? I don’t know how people ever lived like that! Now imagine thirty of those going all at once in a smallish classroom. That was typing class.

I  wander if that was the only class my typing teacher taught. If so, I don’t know how she managed to hold on to her sanity. I’d have gone crazy if I had to listen to that noise all day. That’s probably why she occasionally made us watch films on hygiene. I guess she thought we needed some tips on how to bathe or maybe she’d just do anything to get a break from all that noisy typing.

I never had the opportunity to take Spanish in high school. Foreign languages just weren’t in the cards for me. My adviser must’ve thought I was destined to be a secretary or something, because the following year I ended up in information processing class. Information processing just meant typing on a computer and learning shorthand. Since I do a lot of typing on a computer now, I guess those classes better prepared me for my future career than Spanish ever would’ve. Now all I have to do is find an opportunity to use shorthand.

When I was little all I wanted to do was be on Star Search. I thought I was best suited for the female vocalist or the TV spokes model category. No matter what category, I competed in I knew I’d mop the floor with the competition. Yeah we have the Idol competitions and X Factor and this or that country’s Got Talent now, but nothing beats Star Search. What’s a talent competition without Ed McMahon?

Have you ever wanted something really badly, but been unable to have it? When I was a kid I really wanted a monkey. I’d even heard that you could train your pet monkey to change its own diapers and I thought that was pretty cool. I don’t know why you couldn’t just train it to use the toilet. Anyway, I wanted a monkey so badly and my parents just weren’t having it.

“Those are evil animals,” my father told me like he’d had personally experience with monkeys. He seemed so sure about it  that I wondered if a monkey had killed his best friend and stolen his girl when he was in high school. “We’re not having one of those things in this house. They stink.”

That meant no monkey for me. When that was finally made clear my desire turned to disdain. I decided to hate monkeys which is funny really. How can you possibly hate a monkey? They have such cute little faces. They do such entertaining things like dance and juggle. You can dress them up in outfits. They can even wear hats and sunglasses.

If there was ever a monkey on TV I’d change the channel. I would never watch a movie that featured a monkey, chimp or orangutan. Looking back this was a wise decision. I think that a monkey in a movie is just a desperate attempt by film makers to keep viewers from noticing how bad the script and actors are.

Producer: Do you think the audience will be annoyed when they realize they sat through two hours of story just to find out it’s all a dream?

Director: Not at all. I mean Hulk Hogan has the dynamic range and acting chops to really make the main character come alive.

Producer: Maybe we should put a monkey in it just to be sure.

Director: Great idea. Everyone loves monkeys!

Now that I’m an adult I could have a pet monkey if I really wanted one, but somehow the whole idea has lost its appeal. I no longer hate monkeys. I believe that monkeys are just as good as cats or dogs. Maybe they’re even better because they have cute little hands and opposable thumbs. The two men I live with already make it hard enough to keep the bathroom clean. Imagine how bad the toilet would look if a monkey were using it too.

First photo:  mape_s’

Second photo: Public domain

My husband: When I was a kid we used to have ice cream cake every Saturday.

I haven’t eaten cake for a very long time, but my husband is well aware of my previous love for cake, especially ice cream cake.

Me: What kind of fantasy world did you grow up in? We only had ice cream cake on someone’s birthday and even then it wasn’t guaranteed. When we did have it one of my parents would always mention how expensive it was while we were eating it.

My husband: We had ice cream every night after dinner too.

Me: Every night, weren’t you living the good life? Don’t ever tell me your family didn’t have much money when you grew up again.

My husband: I owned the same two shirts for three year running. Those were the only shirts I had. They had buttons missing.

Me: Who cares? What kid cares about new shirts. Kids want ice cream.

When I was a kid if someone gave me the choice between a new shirt and ice cream, I’d have wanted the ice especially if it were vanilla, unless it was in cake form, then it didn’t matter what flavor it was. (I think that was a run-on sentence, but I don’t want to correct it.)